


From Under The Bridge

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Reylo, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Gingerstorm - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, We are the names we give ourselves, finnhux, renaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-07 14:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17367485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: After being stranded on Batuu for months, former First Order general Armitage Hux is saved from a beating by a mysterious man. Hux thinks he knows him, but who could he be?AKA on the importance of names, and on being able to decide who we want to be.





	From Under The Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Star Wars Rare Ship Challenge on Pillowfort. FinnHux / GingerStorm, prompt is "Batuu".
> 
> Three cheers as usual for my beta LoveThemFiercely, and for Jessa on some advice regarding accents. Thanks also to Jessa for the beautiful moodboard.

“Hey!”

Hux heard the man’s voice past the yells of the group surrounding him where he lay on the ground, and through the pain of the boots jolting his side, back, stomach, head. He was used to it by now, the abuse. He wasn’t sure anymore how long he’d been here, on Batuu. After Kylo Ren dissolved the First Order, leaving them all vulnerable, Hux had left with a contingent planning to escape into Wild Space. Unfortunately they’d abandoned him on Batuu, their last stop before the final jump. He still wasn’t sure if it was an accident or on purpose, but it didn’t matter now. He’d been on this blasted planet for months, living under this bridge. He’d had to abandon his identity or risk assassination, and was now bearded, unkempt, dressed in rags and scavenging for anything he could sell for food. How the mighty had fallen.

This attack was worse than any before, he could tell. There were more of them, for one. Two or three was normal; there were at least five of them now, taking turns with him. And he’d been growing steadily weaker over the months. He’d always been slender, but muscular. It’s hard to maintain muscle when you don’t have enough to eat. He’d grown skinny, and lethargic. He no longer had the energy to fight back. All he could do was curl up on the ground and take it, stars behind his closed eyes and the taste of copper in his throat. The night was hazy, and he wanted to sleep. 

There were a few more shouts, growing closer, and then a noise, familiar from a distant memory; an electric _thrum_ , the distinctive sound of an electrostaff. The crowd around him quickly dispersed, leaving him curled around himself on the dirty, leaf-strewn walkway that led from the street above to his home, tucked between the abutment and the deck of the bridge. He just had to stand up and walk there - it wasn’t far. Just a few steps, really. All he had to do was open his eyes and uncurl, stand up and walk.

Hux lay on the ground, willing his body to respond to his demands. As he struggled to breathe, fighting both nausea and the darkness that threatened to put out the stars, he was aware of approaching footsteps, breathing, someone moving, shifting. There was still the accompanying electric _hum_. If he’d been more conscious, if he’d had any energy at all he would have been concerned, worried about being recognized, arrested, put on trial, but he didn’t even have that in him at this point. 

There was a hand on his shoulder, gentle. Hux couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched with a gentle hand. 

“Hey there, are you okay?” A soft voice, a man's voice, deep and smooth, speaking unaccented Galactic Basic. If it weren't for the tone of it, Hux would assume the man was a stormtrooper.

Hux tried to answer, to say _yes, of course, I’m fine_ , but he wasn’t sure he made any noise at all. He couldn’t move. 

Before darkness finally overtook him, the sound of the electrostaff was extinguished, and the voice said, “Well, kriff.”

* * *

Hux woke up to pain, and the sound of singing.

He was lying on his back, and he kept his eyes closed as he took stock of his situation. He appeared to be lying on a bed, at least on something soft, and not directly on the ground. He was covered by a blanket - thick, scratchy - up to his neck. He was pretty sure he was wearing some kind of fabric bottoms because the blanket wasn’t quite so irritating against his legs, but he definitely wasn’t wearing a shirt; instead his torso seemed to be wrapped up tightly. At the realization his nose communicated to him the distinctive scent of bacta - bacta wraps, then. Broken ribs, maybe? His memory was returning to him; the beating, the voice, the sound of the electrostaff. And then something else; gentle hands, the voice again, soothing. Warm sweet-smelling water and the quiet snip of scissors. Fear, and tears, but combined with palpable relief. And that same voice, singing.

Opening his eyes slowly, he found himself gazing up at a nondescript white ceiling in a very small room, nevertheless lit brightly from what appeared to be sunlight coming in from a single narrow window, set close to the ceiling.

He had no idea where he was or how he got here. The walls of the small room were made of brick painted white where they weren't lined with shelves, shelves that appeared to be full of household provisions. A closet, or a pantry. There were sounds, too, aside from the voice, still singing, that filtered in from another room. Sounds coming from outside the window, on the other side of the wall; the motor of a passing vehicle, other voices, a laugh that was first loud and then faded as the laughing person passed the room where he lay.

The singing voice worked its way closer and the door to the room opened. It was behind his head, so at first he couldn’t see the person who opened the door, now humming, leaned and took a look down at him. Even upside-down Hux could get a sense of the man. He was human, with dark skin and longish hair pulled into twists that hung over his forehead and over his ears. As far as Hux could tell his clothes were nondescript, a simple grey tunic over black trousers. The man was holding a bowl in his hands, and as he stepped further into the room, moving himself next to the bed, Hux could smell the contents, or perhaps the rest of the place smelled like it and the scent was coming in with him. In either case it was some kind of stew, something rich with meat and vegetables. Hux hadn’t eaten anything hot in months, and his stomach responded to the presence of the food by releasing an embarrassingly loud growl.

The man, his face now rightside-up, chuckled at the noise, and held the bowl out to Hux where he lay.

“You hungry? I have plenty.”

Hux _was_ hungry, but he was also distrustful, so he nodded but eyed the bowl with wariness. The man was clearly amused by this too, and he shook his head. 

“Man, if I wanted to kill you I’d have left you under the bridge. Instead I brought you into my home, cleaned you up, I even trimmed your ratty hair and beard while you were passed out, and that was not fun, let me tell you. You’re bruised and I think you have a couple of broken ribs, but lucky for you I am well-stocked with bacta. You’re gonna be okay. But you do need to eat. Right?”

While the man had been soliloquizing Hux examined him. He was familiar, very familiar. Why would he be familiar? Had he been with the escaping contingent, too, another one left behind, but somehow able to keep himself upright? He remembered the sound of the electrostaff, a typical weapon for the stormtroopers. Maybe this guy was a former stormtrooper after all.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and set the bowl on one of the nearby shelves. 

“You need to sit up to eat. This might be a little uncomfortable, but better than trying to eat on your back. Come on.” And he turned, pulled Hux up by his shoulders with those gentle hands and reached below to a crank on the side of the bed that he used to raise the part under Hux’s back to the point where he was able to sit more or less fully upright. It was uncomfortable, his torso was sore and the bandages were very tight, but the smell of the stew was enough to drive him on.

Once he was comfortable, the man passed the bowl to him. It was warm, and full of a thick mixture with chunks of dark meat and a variety of vegetables. Hux was disappointed to discover, however, that he lacked the arm strength to lift the spoon all the way to his mouth.

The man, to his credit, didn’t say a word as he gently took the spoon and lifted it the rest of the way to Hux’s mouth. Hux wanted to feel humiliated; if something like this had happened when he was a general in the First Order it certainly would have been humiliating, considered a sign of weakness. But this man was so matter-of-fact about it, his demeanor expressed no judgement at all. And the stew was good; it was very good.

He must have been making yummy noises - another thing that would have been humiliating in his previous life - because the man chuckled at him. “It is good, isn’t it? The recipe’s from a friend of mine, something his dad used to make for them on Chandrila. I had to modify it to suit ingredients available here on Batuu, but it still works pretty well. He did bring me the peppers that give it that bite, but everything else is local.”

The man kept feeding Hux spoonfuls as he talked. He was a chatty person, which would normally have annoyed Hux but he was so unused to being spoken to at all, it was kind of nice to hear the voice of someone who wasn’t yelling at him. And he had a nice voice. His voice wasn’t familiar, although his face definitely was, but he still couldn’t place it. He paid attention as the man chattered, thinking he might say something that would give him away. But if he was a former stormtrooper he wasn’t mentioning it, instead talking about the planets he’d visited, a bit about fun adventures with his friends; running commentary that seemed to serve the purpose of making Hux comfortable.

It worked. Despite his injuries, Hux was more comfortable than he’d been in years. His time with the First Order was many things, a time of power and luxury, control and domination, and those things had been very enjoyable for Hux but they hadn’t been _comfortable_. Comfort was beside the point. But after living for months hungry and cold under a bridge, comfort wasn’t bad.

Hux was shocked to hear himself thank the man when he finally took the empty bowl from him. The man seemed amused by his thanks, as though a homeless man wouldn’t know how to say thank you, and although Hux never really thought of himself as one - in his own mind he was still a general, just having an unlucky streak - he felt a burst of displeasure at being so insulted. But the man didn’t seem to care.

“Do you want some more?” Hux shook his head, and the man shrugged and went back into the other room, only to return a minute later with empty hands. 

“You need to use the refresher? There’s one just through this door,” he gestured to the door he’d come through. Hux did, in fact, need to use the refresher, so he allowed the man to help him up, hold him up, and maneuver him through the door into the small, outdated kitchen, down a small hallway and through another door into a small, outdated refresher. He tried not to think too hard about the warmth from the man that leached through his tunic, or the way he smelled of stew and flowers, or how his hands were strong but gentle around his waist, and around his wrist. From the hallway he glimpsed a kind of dim sitting room, and he imagined there was a bedroom, or perhaps two, through that room. Hux couldn’t walk on his own, but he could stand, so he silently shooed the man out and took care of his own business. Instead of waiting outside the door the man went back to the kitchen, Hux could hear him singing again. He was able to stand on his own, and before exiting the room he took a moment to examine his face in the mirror over the sink. 

He looked disturbingly like himself. His memories and the man hadn’t lied; the long hair and beard, dirty and unkempt as they had been, were gone, replaced with a much shorter, very uneven beard and hair. They had served as a kind of mask that would make him difficult to identify. Without them, he looked like Armitage Hux, a wanted man. He was in danger. But as long as this man didn’t recognize him - and he certainly didn’t seem to - it would be fine. The hair and beard would grow back, and then… then… Hux wasn’t sure at all then. But he couldn’t stay in the refresher all day, besides his legs were weak and growing tired. So he opened the door, and only then did the man come back and help support him on his trip back to his room.

The man tucked him in, but instead of leaving him alone again he sat back on the edge of the bed.

Hux should have known that there would be a questioning eventually, and it looks like it was finally time. He was ready, though; well-rested, having had time to size up his interrogator. His only fear was being found out. He understood that the new galactic government was busy rounding up former First Order officers and putting them on trial, to serve lifetime sentences. Hux would rather die. 

“So, I know you,” the man said, and Hux froze, he would swear his heart stopped beating. 

“You’ve been living under that bridge for months. I’ve even given you food a couple times, although I don’t know that you remember it.” 

Hux allowed himself to relax. That explains why the man looked familiar.

“I know you understand what I’m saying. Can you talk?”

Hux nodded his head, but didn’t reply, which amused the man again. He seemed to be very easily amused, which was a bit strange. Hux just hadn’t met any people like that in his life. _Or perhaps_ , a voice in his head suggested, _it’s just that nobody ever let you see that part of themselves, because they were afraid of you, and this man doesn’t know enough to be afraid of you_. He ignored the voice.

“Okay, fine. Well, my name’s Finn. I’m a kind of engineer, I guess, for an, uh, intergalactic company. Batuu is my home but I normally travel a lot. Since you showed up I’ve asked for a bit of time off. To be honest I’m not sure what to do with you when you’re all better. Do you want to go back to the bridge?”

Hux didn’t respond, he didn’t know how. He concentrated on the set of shelves directly in front of him. He did not, in fact, want to do back to the bridge. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to whatever was left of the First Order, either, if he even could. He didn’t know what he wanted at all.

Finn sighed. “Okay, we’ll figure it out. We have time, your ribs will take a while to heal. You got a name?”

The question was sudden, and even though Hux should have expected it, he didn’t. He responded naturally.

“My name?”

They were the first words he’d spoken, but Finn took it in stride. 

“Yeah. You know. What do you want me to call you?”

This was an easier question. Hux certainly wasn’t about to give Finn his real name; even if Finn didn’t know the name _Hux_ there were others who would, and who would connect his name to the former general, and his looks were distinctive enough that once the connection was made he’d be headed straight to the court, and from there to the prison. Bridge life wasn’t much but at least he’d been free. But he needed a name. So he cast his mind back and there was one name that stood out; the name of the Imperial Commander who’d protected him from his father, supported him through his darkest days. The closest thing he’d had to a mentor. 

“Sloane. You can call me Sloane.” He looked directly into Finn’s eyes, for the first time, as though to challenge him to disagree.

Instead the man smiled. “Sloane. Okay. Is that your first name, or your last name?”

“Just Sloane.” Hux turned his eyes away, but he heard the answering chuckle.

“Sure, okay. I’ll call you Sloane, Sloane. Now let’s lay you back down, it’s probably time for you to sleep some more.” 

As Finn lowered the bed, Hux noticed that the light outside was growing dimmer, and he was full and warm and was feeling quite tired. So he closed his eyes and allowed Finn to tuck the blanket around him, and eventually he fell asleep to the same sound he’d awakened to, the sound of Finn singing quietly in the next room, and the people and automobiles passing by outside. He was safe for now, and might as well enjoy it while he could.

* * *

Finn took to leaving the door open between Hux’s room and the kitchen. The room was properly the pantry; Finn’d apparently had quick access to a hospital bed, so he’d stuck it in there presumably as the most convenient place in his apartment. Hux couldn’t help but think there was also something secret about the space. Finn could have put the bed in a spare room, or even in someplace more public, like the sitting room, but he hadn’t. He’d stuck it in a closet, a place that was relatively easy to hide. Hux tried not to read too much into this choice, because it seemed that Finn spent a great deal of time in the kitchen, so it was convenient. They could talk, or Finn could sing while Hux napped, or they could listen to holos together. Finn had also given Hux an old datapad, complete with a silly sticker with an ewok on it that said SLOANE’S DON’T TOUCH, which had made him smile despite himself. It was loaded with classic novels that he found himself reading and enjoying. He’d never been interested in fiction before, considered it a waste of time when there were so many other important things to be doing, but he enjoyed the stories, and he enjoyed talking about them with Finn as he read. 

Hux felt better every day, stronger. A few times during the day Finn would help him out of bed and he’d go to the refresher, to bathe and relieve himself, and then he’d walk across the kitchen, into the pantry, back to the refresher, just walking back and forth. He’d complained about it at first, both the pain and his need for help annoyed him greatly, but then Finn took to calling him “moaning Sloane” - while laughing, of course - and he managed to stop his grousing. At night, while Finn slept in some room Hux had never seen, he would practice sitting up by himself, maneuvering himself out of bed, taking steps on his own the best he could. He was careful not to push himself too hard; he didn’t want to injure himself, or to risk Finn knowing that he was planning to leave as soon as he could find the energy, and the opportunity. 

He wandered the kitchen and the hallway but never stepped into the sitting room, although he couldn’t have said why not. He would sometimes stand and look into the room, dimly lit from streetlights filtered through the curtains lining the small windows that fronted the street on that side of the building. It was nothing special, just some old furniture and machine parts spread across a low table. Finn had said he was an engineer, after all. There were no photographs or other decorations, but Hux didn’t think much of that. He’d never had anything like that in his own living quarters anyway. He supposed the electrostaff was in there, somewhere. He could take it, use it to escape. _Escape?_ To where? He couldn't say.

So their days had fallen into a regular kind of rhythm, but that rhythm was broken when, late on the morning of the fifteenth day, there was a knock on the door. Finn had been cooking lunch, more of the delicious stew he’d had on the first day, and Hux’s favorite meal, and they were listening to some music show on the holo. Finn kept the music on, but hopped to the door to the pantry and stuck his head in. 

“Sloane, please be quiet. Don’t make a sound,” he said, with a warning in his voice that was very different from his usual relaxed tone. He sounded worried. More than worried; he sounded afraid. And for the first time since the day he’d arrived, Hux was afraid too. Who would care that some random engineer might have picked up some random homeless person who’d been beaten up under a bridge?

Finn shut the door, and immediately Hux stood as quietly as he could and sat down on the cold floor, tucked behind the end of the bed, leaning against the doorway.

There was another knock, and then the sound of a door opening. Voices, then, happy greetings, shouts, laughing. Alien to Hux; had he ever been greeted with a laugh? He was certain he hadn’t, but there was a warmth in his throat when he thought of this for Finn. Finn deserved a happy greeting, he thought. 

It took him a few moments to differentiate the voices, but finally he figured there were three of them. Finn, whom he recognized easily; another man, whose voice at first was only a rumble from the entryway, and a woman who bounded into the kitchen almost immediately complaining of hunger. 

She had what sounded to Hux like an Imperial accent. Was it Coruscanti? Maybe Eriaduan? It didn’t necessarily mean anything but it certainly could indicate that this woman was from the First Order. Was Finn preparing to pass him over to whatever was left of the Order after all? And if so, did Hux welcome the eventuality or not? He was frozen with indecision.

In any case the woman wasn’t talking politics; she was talking food.

“I’m _starving_ , Finn, we’ve been in hyperspace for days with only slop to eat and I am dying for some real food. Ohhhh, is this that Chandrila stew? It smells heavenly, may I have some? Please?”

Finn, laughing; the sound of bowls and spoons and stew being ladled; the smell still present in Hux’s room from when the door was open just a minute ago. Hux’s stomach growled; it was his lunchtime, too, and he’d grown used to regular meals in the short time he’d been staying with Finn. He cringed, not because he was afraid of them hearing his stomach on the other side of the door, but because he considered his hunger a sign of weakness. He needed to leave, and soon, or else he’d become another person entirely. He’d already grown too attached to Finn, he knew this; the word _friend_ had started to enter his internal vocabulary, and he couldn’t allow that. Maybe he should open the door himself and get it over with, ask these former First Order representatives to take him away with them.

He pressed an ear to the door while weighing his options. Heavy steps made their way to the side of the kitchen closest to him and halted. Finn and the woman were conversing as they ate, so the third man must have been the one by the closet. Hux held his breath, and as the man spoke for the first time - answering some question asked by one of the others - he felt the blood rushing from his head. _He knew that voice_. He hated that voice. 

This person was definitely former First Order, but not the way Hux been thinking. That voice belonged to Kylo Ren, the former - for a very brief time - Supreme Leader of the Galaxy. The last time Hux had seen him the man had Force-pushed him through a wall before taking off in an escape pod in the company of…

Rey. The so-called Last Jedi. The scavenger from Jakku with the oddly formal accent. She’d helped Ren kill the former Supreme Leader and had somehow convinced him to dissolve the entire First Order before abdicating the Leadership and running off with her to join the Resistance. 

And they’d been accompanied by a third. The Traitor, the former stormtrooper who’d returned in disguise to lead the rebellion that had made the whole plan possible. FN-2187 had been his identification number, but he’d adopted a new name as soon as he’d been out from under the thumb of the First Order. 

_Finn_. He’d called himself Finn. Finn, Finn Finn.

Hux had known this. About the name. And he’d spent hours looking at photos of the man as they were working to track him down. Had he forgotten, or had he simply not wanted to know? He was positive now that Finn knew exactly who he was. Why hide him, otherwise. But then - _why hide him at all_? Finn had been active in the Resistance, presumably he now had some kind of position with the new galactic government. He was close enough with the Last Jedi and her consort that they were comfortable dropping by unannounced and eating Chandrila stew while standing around his kitchen, gossiping about the love life of… Poe Dameron. Ugh, even worse.

Hux was exhausted. He didn’t even bother trying to get back into bed. Instead he lay down right on the cold floor dressed only in his thin tunic and leggings, curled in a ball, and drifted off to the sounds of talking and laughter that was so close and yet very far away

* * *

Finn came in some time later. The house was silent, aside from the usual noise filtering in from the street through the high window. The light was dimmer than it had been earlier, so the Jedi and the traitor - the _other_ traitor - had been visiting for a few hours at least, but they were gone now. Finn sighed to see Hux lying on the floor, but Hux ignored the man's extended hand and pulled himself up, slowly and still with residual pain, and made his way to the refresher. When he was done, instead of returning to the closet he went into the dark sitting room, where he lowered himself carefully onto the sofa.

From his position on the sofa he could see the areas of the house that he’d been blind to before; the second hallway, which presumably led back to Finn’s bedroom, and the open entryway where the front door conspired uncomfortably with a messy closet that appeared to lack a door. The electrostaff was visible there, tucked into a corner like another piece of junk. As Hux had deduced from his previous inspections from the doorway there wasn’t much in the room except for a bit of random junk around on the floor, and the machine parts on the low table. He was examining these parts when Finn came in, a bowl of hot stew and a spoon in his hands. Hux had lost his appetite; couldn’t imagine ever eating again, really, but Finn was insistent and he took the bowl from the other man as he sat beside him on the sofa.

While Hux ate, Finn explained what the machine parts were for.

“It’s just some parts of an old med droid; a little thing, for really basic treatments. I pulled it out when I brought you home, but it didn’t work so I took it apart thinking I might be able to fix it.” He laughed awkwardly. “Turns out that kind of thing just isn’t my forte. Rey, you know, she took a look and after she’d finished laughing at me she gave me some tips on how I might go about fixing it for good, but I don’t know. I don’t think I’m gonna bother.”

The sound of the woman’s name, offered so freely and without judgment from Finn’s mouth, almost made Hux choke on a mouthful of stew, but he managed to work through it. After that Finn just watched him, with interest, while he finished eating. When he was done he sat, holding the bowl loosely in his hands, tracing the different bits of metal across the table with his eyes and trying to imagine how they might fit together. That’s what he told himself, anyway. 

After a minute Finn took the bowl and set it on the table, then he turned to Hux, and Hux mirrored his movement, until they sat knee-to-knee. Finn took both of Hux’s hands in his, and Hux thought he might cry. He’d never cried, or he didn’t remember; he wasn’t sure he knew how.

“I want to leave,” Finn said quietly, in that gentle voice, and Hux tried to recoil - _why?_ \- but Finn held his hands tightly and he wasn’t able to pull away. The man leaned forward and spoke carefully, his brown eyes shining in the darkness. “It isn’t safe for you here anymore. You understand? But we can leave. I know there are pockets of former stormtroopers on some of the worlds in the Outer Rim; neutral worlds. I can’t promise _welcome_ but they might not kill you on sight.” He offered a crooked smile, and Hux realized that the other man was stroking the tops of his hands with his thumbs. It was comforting. 

“Why?” Hux asked. “Why…” he wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking, so he just waved his hands the best he could, considering they were steady in Finn’s grip.

Finn’s eyebrows drew together. “Why leave? Isn’t it obvious?”

Hux shook his head. “No. Why take me? Why not just turn me in? You obviously know who I am, I don’t understand.”

“Who you are. Okay,” Finn said. “I’ll let _you_ tell me who you are. But let me say something first.” He waited for Hux to agree, and when Hux nodded Finn gave his hands a squeeze.

“So, I’m Finn. I used to have another name, a different life. But I didn’t like that life, so I decided to change it. I’m still me - there are parts of myself that will never change - but I don’t do the same things I used to, and I do other things that I didn’t before. And I changed my name, to represent my new life. Make sense?”

Hux nodded. It did make sense. A new name, new life. Different. Finn continued.

“That man who was in here earlier? You think you know him, but you don’t. His name’s Ben. He also had a life he didn’t like, so he changed it, changed his name,” Finn paused to chuckle. “Okay, he had to do it a couple of times because he kept messing up. But the point is that _now_ he’s Ben. He can’t change anything he’s done in the past, but he can do better now. And he is. He tried to kill me once and now he’s my friend. Because he decided that’s what he wanted, and because I was willing to give him that too.”

Hux’s face was wet. He was pretty sure he was crying. It wasn’t terrible. Finn took a moment to lift up one of his hands and wipe the moisture from Hux’s cheeks. It was a little awkward because Hux wouldn’t let go, but he did an admirable job of it.

Once Hux was calm again, his face more or less dry, Finn gave his hands another squeeze.

“Okay, now. Tell me who you are.”

There was something in Hux’s throat, and his face was wet again, but he could talk. 

“I’m… Sloane. I used to live under a bridge, and you saved me, you brought me into your home and nursed me even though you didn’t have to. Even though you knew who I was before and what I’d done. And… I can’t change who I was or what I’ve done, but I can try to do different things now. Less domination and destruction and more… I don’t know. I like novels, it turns out, and stew.” And he chuckled, and Finn chuckled with him, and that was interesting. 

Finn leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together. “Sloane.”

“Finn,” Sloane replied.

“I want to leave tomorrow, first thing. I’ll put out some feelers to some of my old contacts, see if I can find a good place for us to go. Okay?”

Sloane nodded. He was still reeling, unsure, but he was sure he’d follow Finn wherever he went.

“What about your friends? Will they try to find you?”

Finn laughed sadly and moved his head back and forth, which caused their noses to rub together at the tip. “Yeah. They’ll probably find me too, eventually, but I’ll leave them a message so they don’t worry too much. It’s not that unusual for people go to off the grid.” He pushed their noses together more purposefully, and Hux held back a gasp. Finn whispered, “It’ll be fine.”

And then Finn pressed his lips against Sloane’s - or maybe it was the other way around, he wasn’t really sure. But they were kissing, Sloane’s first kiss under any name, and he liked it. He liked kissing Finn very much.

So they kissed, and then it was time for bed, even though it was still quite early, because they would have an early day the next morning. Finn wanted to leave at first light and they still had to pack. They stood up from the sofa, and instead of taking him back to the closet in the kitchen Finn pulled Sloane with him into the dark hallway, the secret hallway that led to his bedroom, and to their new life together.

**Author's Note:**

> Sloane is a reference to [Rae Sloane](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rae_Sloane), who at one point fled into the Unknown Regions with Armitage Hux, his father Brendol, and several child soldiers. Brendol was abusive towards his son, and Sloane protected Armitage from Brendol. It's unclear to me how emotionally close they were but I like to think he had fond memories of her, that her name was the one that came to him when he was forced to choose one of his own.
> 
> I'm leoba on Pillowfort and leofgyth on Tumblr, come say hello!


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